As the narrative developed, she was, of course, black. She was promiscuous and she was lazy. She was also a lie.

…

My mother embodied four generations of higher education and even went on to earn a doctoral degree.

She was also a welfare mother.

And, according to Reaganomics, she was the bane of society. By their calculations, my mother’s predicament was her fault, and her fault alone. Never mind the nationwide recession or that my father (well into his 30’s and with his own set of degrees*) left her alone with two small children. Never mind her dogged attempts to find work and the racism and sexism that waited for her at each interview. She was part of a plague rippling across the country. Part of a racialized, sexualized—but faceless—army.

‘In the 1980 campaign, Ronald Reagan extolled the virtues of
states’ rights to an audience in Philadelphia, Miss., where civil rights
activists had famously been killed by racist whites in 1964. To many, this
combination of text and context covertly signaled Reagan’s opposition to the
Civil Rights Act. Reagan also made racial appeals once in office: He used an
African American Cadillac-driving “welfare queen” as Exhibit A in his case
against liberal social welfare programs.’http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/15/AR2008021502895.html